


You’re Not Alone Anymore

by Mimozka



Series: Arrow Season 4 Stories [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: 4x01 Green Arrow, Anger, F/M, Team Arrow, episode fic, protective partners
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-25 15:12:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4965802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mimozka/pseuds/Mimozka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was done being silent. Her partner was hurting and she was going to do something about it. She never should have let it get this far. She’d almost lost him today, her nerves are already at their breaking point. She’d already yelled at them to get their shit together. </p><p>But when their team mates, their friends, make yet another remark about Oliver staying in Suburbia, she looses it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You’re Not Alone Anymore

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CheerUpLovely](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheerUpLovely/gifts).



> This is a post 4x01 fic. I was left utterly disgusted by how Thea, Diggle, Laurel and Lance treated Oliver in the première. I decided to do something about it
> 
> I also kind of flip @yespleasehawkeye ‘s prompt of Oliver asking Felicity to go back to Ivy Town and Felicity noticing how he smiles less now and how much she hates it.

* * *

 

It’s been a month since they came back to Star City. A month of trying to fight against the threat of Dhark and H.I.V.E. A month of being hunted down by the police. A month of discord. A month since she’s seen Oliver smile so widely she could count his teeth.

When they first came back to the city (the city, not home, because for Felicity home is not a place. It’s a person.) she’d known that they would need a period of transition and adjustment to the new dynamics on Team Arrow (was it even team Arrow? It sure as hell didn’t feel like it). Her and Oliver were different people than the ones that had left Starling seven months ago. Their friends were different than the ones they left behind. The city was different.

However, she never expected it to take such a toll on them. She never expected it to be this hard. 

In the four years she’s known Oliver and Diggle, they’ve had their disagreements, sure. John never sugar coated his feelings with Oliver and Oliver returned the same courtesy. Yet, no matter what was going on (save for that one time that Diggle walked out on them) they were able to put their differences aside in favour of their mission and the bigger picture. Their mission was bigger than the both of them. It was bigger than all of them. The stakes too high.

It’s not that she didn’t understand where John was coming from. Of course she did. For a while there she shared his outrage and feeling of betrayal. Oliver had done the unthinkable (again) only this time it had cost him more than a few cuts and bruises. It had cost him his brother. Their brother.

However, Felicity knew what John didn’t. What neither of them knew. Oliver had told her about the time spent in the League. About what they did to him. She has perfect recollection of the pattern on the top right corner or his back - the arrowhead he was branded with as if he were nothing but cattle. She knew it had gotten infected. He’d whispered it all to her at night as they laid in their bed, with him cuddled into her.

Yet, she is aware that doesn’t absolve him of his actions. He doesn’t seek that. He’s accepting full responsibility for his actions just like he has always done in the time she’s known him. He shoulders his own responsibility and that of those around him. Bears it quietly, without complaints. He doesn’t mind, not as long as it makes things easier for his loved ones.

Which is exactly why he hasn’t taken steps to resolve the problem within their team. He doesn’t feel he has the right to anymore. It’s not his team. He’s not sure how he fits in with them, or if he fits in at all. She can’t blame him, not really.

She’s noticed that he doesn’t smile as much anymore. Not as much as he used to when they were travelling. Not as often as he did in their home in Ivy Town. She can feel the tension grow within him with each day that passes. She knows how terrified he is of reverting back to who he was before. Knows how much progress he’s made in the past six months, how important it is to him.

 _“I’ll never get tired of making plans that don’t involve people shooting at me”_  - knows how much more there is to that statement than the humorous quip it’s supposed to be.

She hates it. She’s afraid - afraid that he would feel like he’d made no progress at all, or that it was all for naught. 

On the bad days she feels like kicking herself for insisting they come back. She’d seen how reluctant Oliver was. Known how afraid he was of this place when he refused his sister’s plea for help. A place she used to call home, but one she suspected was never home to him. The place he’d lost his mother, best friend and Sara. The place he’d lost Roy. The place he’d stood tall to defend only to be hunted down as gratitude. A place he was willing to die for, barely thirty years of age.

She’d kept quiet however, knowing that fighting his battles for him would do him no favours. But not after tonight. Not after one close call too many. She was done. Done with this ridiculous situation. 

And they were all going to hear about it.

Oliver may be alright with bearing everything quietly and with a straight face, but she wasn’t. She loved him more than she’d ever loved anyone. She was angry, no, furious.

She was done being silent. Her partner was hurting and she was going to do something about it. She never should have let it get this far. She’d almost lost him today, her nerves are already at their breaking point. She’d already yelled at them to get their shit together. 

But when their team mates, their friends, make yet another remark about Oliver staying in Suburbia, she looses it.

“That’s enough!” her voice is steel, her glare is ice and her palms are burning with the itch to hit something. She gets up from her station, her chair flying back and hitting the nearby pillar. She doesn’t care.

She marches angrily towards them. Their  _friends_.

“I have had it with you. All of you!” the tone of her voice got louder and louder. “I have had it with your judgemental comments and hollier-than-thou attitudes.” 

John, Laurel and Thea stare at her mutely, their expressions ranging from shock, to disinterest to annoyance. 

“Felicity - “ Oliver reaches for her with a whisper.

She pulls her hand away from him. She needs that anger now. 

“No, Oliver.” She told him “They need to hear this.”

If he won’t defend himself, then she will defend him. They’re partners in all the possible ways of the word. That’s what partners do. When the world comes crashing down around you, they are the only pillar left standing that you can lean on.

“Ever since we came back you have had this attitude towards Oliver. You never pass an opportunity to comment on the life he’s lead for the past six months. Never stop and think about what your words are doing to him. You don’t care.” 

She raised her hand in warning as Thea and Laurel opened their mouths to disagree. John’s silence didn’t escape her notice either.

“No. You’ve been talking for the past month and I’ve - we have - listened” she motioned towards herself and Oliver. “Now it’s my turn to talk and yours to listen.”

“You are the ones that wanted us back. You are the ones that wanted our help. You are the ones that felt like they needed it.”

“I didn’t - “

:” _Shut up,_ John.” never in the time they’ve been friends had she addressed him so coldly. She’d probably feel bad about it at some point, but not right now. Her fury was too great.

“Yet you never pass an opportunity to make Oliver feel unwelcome. You never pass an opportunity to make him feel less than the good person he is. You say he abandoned his city, his friends, his family…” her gaze flickered from Diggle to Laurel to Thea pointedly “You imply that he is selfish. That you are somehow better than him because you stayed.”

“Yet all of you forget what he has sacrificed for this city. What he’s sacrificed for every one of you. You forget that he travelled half the world to help you get your wife out of a Russian prison.” she pointed at Diggle “You forget the countless times he put your life before the city’s, the countless times he’s saved you from a tight spot” her finger moves towards Laurel “You forget that he gave his life for you. Literally died for you. Not once but twice.” she turned her attention to Thea.

“You call him selfish when he put his life on hold for three years, sparing no effort to keep you safe. Doing unthinkable things, going to lengths I am yet to see any of you go to keep the people he loves safe. Regardless of the toll it took on him. Regardless of his own suffering. He’d do it again, if he has to.”

She took a deep breath and willed herself to calm down.

“Only difference is that this time I won’t let him. I won’t let him set himself on fire to keep you warm. I won’t let him think less of how far he’s come since last year, because you can’t appreciate it or don’t care to.”

She’s pleased to see they have stopped trying to interrupt her. Her voice was echoing around their base of operations. 

“I will not let you treat him like this. Things are different now. With you three, but with the two of us as well. So until you get your shit together and start acting like the friends and partners you’re supposed to be, we’re out. Feel free to keep doing what you’re doing. And if you do decide that you actually wants us around for anything other than to use both of us for our skills, then you know where to find us.” 

She doesn’t wait for them to respond to her, rather she spins around, grabs her things from her desk, takes Oliver’s hand and tugs him out of the Foundry. Never once turning back to look at them or say goodbye.

Their ride back to the loft is silent. Their hands entwined together, but their eyes straight ahead on the road.

Oliver is thoughtful. Felicity is exhausted, her anger having drained her emotionally.

They undress in silence, too, putting their nightwear on and slipping under the covers of their bed.

It’s only once she’s comfortably situated in his arms. her head resting on his heart, the steady beat of which serves to calm her down further, that he speaks.

“Thank you” his voice is barely over a whisper, his lips ghosting over the crown of her head.

She knows how much having someone to support him means to him when he’s spent the last decade facing the world and weathering the storms it threw at him. He’s told her as much on more than one occasion. 

“We can always pack and go back to the house. Leave all of this behind. We can find other ways to fight people.” she offers, her voice quiet and gentle, nothing like what it was not an hour ago.

“This is your home, Felicity.” 

“My home is with  _you_.” she counters, propping herself on her elbows to look at him.

He has that look of wonder on his face. The look he gets when he feels his life is too good and he’s wondering what he’s done to earn it. 

“I told you, Oliver, you are not alone anymore.” She reaches up to caress his cheek and feels him lean in to her.

He opts to kiss her instead of say anything. But she doesn’t need him to give voice to his words. She can feel everything he needs to say in the way he kisses her.

He would shield her from any and all harm. She would fight anyone who dares hurt him.

 


End file.
